Alone with Others Quotes

“The origin of the conflict, frustration, and anxiety we experience does not lie in the nature of the world itself but in our distorted conceptions of the world.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Patience is the specific antidote to anger and hatred. It is an attitude of accepting both the harm caused by others and the pains and discomforts found in life instead of angrily retaliating against them. Only in the calm afforded by patient acceptance is one able to clearly discern the nature of the situation and proceed to deal with it realistically. Once the mind becomes distorted and disturbed with anger, any possibility of objectivity is lost. One consequently embarks upon a course of action grounded in misconception that inevitably leads to a heightening of the initial conflict rather than its resolution.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Every attitude we assume, ever word we utter, and every act we undertake establishes us in relation to others.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Our conceptions of the world affect our perceptions of the world which, in turn, condition the way we subsequently conceive the world.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“The meaning of man's life, as we have seen, is not measured by what he has, but by what he is. No matter how many possessions we have amassed, how much wealth we have accrued, how respected and secure our position is in society, how numerous the pieces of information we have accumulated, in moments of lucidity we may still abruptly perceive the dreadful futility of it all, the overwhelming emptiness and pointlessness of such a life.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“The root of all inauthentic manifestations of being-with-others is the attitude of self-concern. It is in this state of mind that, either consciously or unconsciously, we reduce the central aim of all value and meaning to the accomplishment of the welfare of ourselves alone. This attitude can operate very deviously even in the person who outwardly appears to be thoroughly altruistic. Despite all magnanimous commitments and generous deeds, it silently measures the ultimate worth of these things in terms of the personal satisfaction that results from them. It is the root of inauthentic being-with because it is primarily responsible in preventing our essential being-with-others from full and genuine expression.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“... We have to constantly confront our deepest anxieties, our emptiness, our despair, our doubts; and there is nowhere for us to escape and hide from them. It is impossible to ever turn back, and at times it seems impossible to ever make any further progress.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Ignorance is not merely a deficiency of knowledge but, in addition, it positively apprehends reality in a distinctive way. And being a distorted mode of conception, it creates a view of the world that is in opposition to, and in conflict with, the actual way the world is.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Life does not mechanically alternate between aloneness and participation, rather it embraces them both in an undivided unity.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“The inner aim of thought is never fully realized until it ripens into vocal utterances through which others can have access- albeit indirect- to our personal experience. In fact,an inner experience only achieves true completeness when it has been spoken. No matter how profound an insight one may gain, as long as it stays inarticulately concealed within an introspective silence, it remains one-dimensional and incomplete.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“For others, however, the significance of anxiety in disclosing a fundamental insight into human existence is grasped. At this point their consciences will never allow them to return to a contented absorption in particular entities. Any such attempt to do so will be felt deep down as a betrayal of their truer instincts. Those things which previously were experienced with full satisfaction will now seem shallow, hollow, and somehow meaningless. We come to understand with greater and greater clarity that absorption int the world of things provides no refuge, and one ceases to center one's hope in them. At this critical juncture of human existence two basic alternatives remain: either to dismiss existence in general and man's existence in particular as essentially futile and absurd, or to place one's hope in the actualization of a greater purpose or meaning that is not immediately evident within the realm of empirical data.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Ironically, the more we crave to possess and dominate the world and others, the deeper and more unbearable becomes the chasm of our own emptiness.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“In pride we consciously elevate our own standing and concerns and look down upon others as essentially inferior.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“We perceive the world in a particular way and confidently expect it to conform to its appearance. But we fail to recognize that certain aspects of the 'reality' that appear to us are nothing but figments of our own imagination. In this confusion a conflict ensues between the world as it is and the world as we believe it to be. And the more we insist on our infallibility, the more frustrated we become as the actual world again and again stubbornly refuses to live up to our expectations.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Wisdom that neglects method leads to excessive introversion and an inability to effectively communicate with others. Method without wisdom can produce well-intentioned but naive and superficial acts of altruism that alleviate merely the symptoms of suffering without tackling the root cause of the problem.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Such altruism, generated in the seclusion of one's own thoughts, becomes a subtle means of evading concrete inter-personal responsibility and of justifying to oneself a life of peaceful uninvolved isolation from others. We proclaim to ourselves our love and compassion for such abstract entities as 'humanity' or 'all sentient beings' in order to avoid having to love any one person.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Habitually, as we anxiously flee from the responsibility of our existence as a whole, we place our hope in the particular objects and situations of the world. This, however, fails to provide us with a secure refuge and our initial anxiety asserts itself again.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“The true value of any dogma or belief lies in its ability to point beyond itself to a deeper reality which can not be readily articulated in a simple formula or expression.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Loneliness is not only positively characterized by a certain degree of isolation, but is negatively characterized by a deficiency of participation.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Not only are we inescapably alone in the realms of our private thoughts, perceptions and feelings, but we are also, paradoxically, inescapably together in a world with others.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“It is only when the question ceases to be identified with the subject-verb-predicate structure of grammar, and is recognized within its original ground, within existence itself, that we can start looking for an answer. But such an answer will not be restricted to the confinements of language; it too must be revealed within an existential structure.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“What lies ahead is revealed to us through our being confronted with possibilities. Our possibilities, however, are not unconditional and infinite but are limited by the structure of our actual existence.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“The astronaut in his technical and complex machine, effortlessly orbiting the earth, alone and weightless in the emptiness of space, is the perfect symbol of man today. Despite our domination of the forces of nature and our highly developed technology, we have come to feel ourselves as empty, alienated, anxious, and lonely, without any real inner purpose or meaning to our existence.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Our religion, with its beliefs, rituals, and dogmas becomes another segment among all the other segments that constitute our linear and fragmented existence. It offers us another set of possible acquisitions, even more tempting than all the others: a meaning to life, immortality, enlightenment, the kingdom of heaven.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“A lack of being remains unaffected by a plenitude of having.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Anxiety, alienation, loneliness, emptiness, and meaninglessness are the fruits of living as an isolated subject admist a multitude of lifeless objects. Although our scope of involvement may extend to numerous and diverse fields of interest and concern, as long as the notion of having predominates, our being remains empty and superficial.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Learning and education have frequently degenerated into the systematic accumulation of facts and information.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Nowadays, the tendency to be preoccupied with having, at the expense of losing touch with the dimension of being, is becoming ever more pronounced. In times such as ours, when secular and material values dominate social and cultural life to an extreme degree, the intensity of the urge to have creates an ever widening gulf from the awareness of who and what we are.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone with Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Every morning the same bright sun rises; every morning there is a rainbow on the waterfall; every evening the highest snowcapped mountain, far, far away, on the very edge of the sky shows with a purple flame; every ‘tiny gnat’ buzzing around him in the hot sunshine plays its part in that chorus: it knows its place, it loves it and is happy; every blade of grass grows and is happy! Everything has its path, and everything knows its path; it departs with a song and comes back with a song; only he knows nothing, understands nothing, neither men nor sounds, a stranger to everything and an outcast.” Dostoyevsky,”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone With Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism

“Stephen Batchelor, in the present work, offers a method of propounding the Buddha Dharma in a way that helps to cope with all the difficulties just outlined, and may provide a new impetus to the propagation of Buddhism. His approach is likely to appeal to many categories of readers who have hitherto never considered Buddhism as having great relevance to themselves. He points out that all thinking people sooner or later become aware of disturbing facts and questions which just have to be faced, no matter how reluctantly.”
― Stephen Batchelor, Alone With Others: An Existential Approach to Buddhism